Monday, August 23, 2010

I'm launching a new, light-hearted running feature today, devoted to watching newsmakers and others with Freaky Names, or simply ironic names or names that make you say, "Huh, is that his/her real name?" Let's get started.

The SF Chronicle over the weekend reported on the annual Exotic Erotic Ball moving from the Cow Palace, just over the San Francisco border in Daly City, over to an East Bay city. The sexual fetish and costume ball attracts a mainly straight crowd and is described by many as an indoor version of the Folsom Street Fair.

One local politician is pleased with the event moving to his city and using a municipal pavilion for adult fun and frolic:

During World War II, a mostly female workforce outfitted tanks [at the ball's future location] for the military, said Tom Butt, a Richmond city councilman. After the war, it was used for a time as a Ford assembly plant. [...]

It hadn't been used much in recent years until a new owner spiffed it up, Butt said.

Click here for more info on Mr. Butt. Good to see this pol getting, um, behind the ball coming to his city.

Another name to add to the list is longtime gay Hollywood publicist Howard Bragman, who recently bragged about signing up JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater after he dramatically told off a passenger and then exited the plane, with a cold beer in had, on an inflatable slide.

And finally today, there's Mark Papermaster, who until recently was senior vice president of Apple for hardware engineering. He's departed the computer giant after it suffered consumer complaints, and loads of bad p.r., over the company's antennae glitches with their SmartPhone. Does anyone think of paper or a master for it when Apple's name comes up? Maybe Papermaster should find work at Georgia-Pacific, the paper manufacturer.